No. 16 seed TSU opens NCAA Tournament against North Carolina

The Texas Southern basketball team reacts after being named the 16th seed in the South Region of the NCAA Basketball Tournament on Sunday, March 12, 2017, in Houston. TSU will face No. 1 seed North Carolina in the first round of the tournament. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )

The Texas Southern basketball team reacts after being named the 16th seed in the South Region of the NCAA Basketball Tournament on Sunday, March 12, 2017, in Houston. TSU will face No. 1 seed North Carolina in

The Texas Southern basketball team reacts after being named the 16th seed in the South Region of the NCAA Basketball Tournament on Sunday, March 12, 2017, in Houston. TSU will face No. 1 seed North Carolina in the first round of the tournament. ( Brett Coomer / Houston Chronicle )

The Texas Southern basketball team reacts after being named the 16th seed in the South Region of the NCAA Basketball Tournament on Sunday, March 12, 2017, in Houston. TSU will face No. 1 seed North Carolina in

The party at the Toyota Center after Texas Southern won another Southwestern Athletic Conference tournament title on Saturday only moved to the locker room during Selection Sunday.

The team didn't take their eyes off the TV, gawking and waiting patiently for "Texas Southern" to show up on the bracket.

It's as if seeing the team name flash on the screen made it even more real than it already was.

"It kind of caught me unexpected," said freshman guard Demontrae Jefferson, who is second on the team in scoring at 14.9 points per game. "It got me real excited, real happy. I don't know how to explain it."

A giant is opposite Texas Southern for the first round of the NCAA Tournament – North Carolina.

Five regular-season conference titles since 2011, four conference tournament titles since 2013 and four consecutive postseason berths in hand, the Tigers have a claim as the best thing going in Houston for college basketball.

Now, a crack at history. The Tigers will try to become the first 16-seed ever to knock off a 1-seed when they face the Tar Heels in the South Region on Friday in Greenville, S.C., all while trying to nab the program's first NCAA Tournament win.

Texas Southern athletics director Charles McClelland didn't see this coming – not all this winning. He was just looking for stabilization when head coach Mike Davis came aboard in 2012 and now he has much more.

He'd been a part of winning before as the athletics director at Prairie View A&M, but said what head coach Mike Davis has done in Third Ward is special.

McClelland said Texas Southern is a name recruits can take seriously now. They can join the program knowing there is a legitimate shot at the NCAA Tournament every year.

He understands the name the Tigers will be playing Friday is nearly bigger than the game itself, but there is value in that.

"What we try to do with our student athletes, one is to graduate them but two, put them in positions that they've never been in in their life," McClelland said. "To be primetime playing North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament, what more could you ask for for Texas Southern University?"

Texas Southern doesn't expect to be shell-shocked.

The program has made waves for winning but also for a gauntlet that had the Tigers on the road for the entirety of its non-conference schedule. They had one game in Houston at Rice in November but didn't play an actual home game until Jan. 14.

TSU had one stretch where it played at Louisville, Cincinnati, LSU, TCU and Baylor in consecutive games.

It was so eye-popping that it caught the attention of ESPN's Outside the Lines, where Davis did an on-camera interview.

Could it be this team's saving grace against a giant like the Tar Heels?

"We won't even try to focus on the seeds," junior guard Zach Lofton said. "We're going to play another high-major team as we did all through November and December. We just have to focus on that and believe in coach and play our hardest.

"It's the biggest game of our lives."

Davis was actually a bit disappointed in the 16-seed. He hoped the perception of TSU changed and warranted better.

You won't find him complaining, though. While TSU had to settle for the National Invitation Tournament last year when it won the regular-season crown but fell short in the conference tournament.

And it's OK for a mid-major like TSU to be disappointed in settling. What the Tigers have done for the last five years changed expectations.

"We want this to be a deal where we expect it," Davis said. "Next year is going to be even more challenging because the other teams in our conference are not going to sit around and let us be the team to make it every year. They want to celebrate as well.